Unknown's avatar

Proposed closure of Cooper Gallery at University of Dundee

by


On 17.6.26, University of Dundee announced plans for a further 190 FTE [1] staff job cuts, with people finding out if their roles were at risk of redundancy. At this point, the Executive had already decided which courses and areas would not be cut and which areas would be put forward as part of the proposal, automatically placing those academic and professional support roles in the latter category in a ‘risk of redundancy pool’.

This current round of proposed cuts is ‘despite already cutting about 675 jobs through voluntary redundancies’ (BBC News) since Nov 2024. It also follows a series of restructuring of eight schools into four faculties, with Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design now part of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. ‘Non essential’ services – defined by University of Dundee as services not directly teaching or research, rather linked to enhancement of experience- are also on the proposals also to be cut. This includes University of Dundee Botanic Garden, Cooper Gallery (The Jute Journal broke the news (18.6.26) that ‘Dundee University has proposed the closure of Cooper Gallery by July 2027 as part of major restructuring’), the Chaplaincy, the university’s children’s nursery and Student Services (including Disability Support and pre-sessional English).  The corporate definition of ‘non essential’ however is essentially a non sequitur. On the proposed cut of the Chaplaincy, Dame Sue Black, former Professor of Anatomy and Forensic Anthropology at the University of Dundee said ‘There is no doubt that the university is facing a period of profound challenge, but one of the clearest lessons from crisis management is that frontline pastoral and humanitarian support should be protected, not diminished. (‘Dame Sue Black speaks out against Dundee University proposals to make chaplaincy staff redundant’ Connor Bertie 21.6.26). The Cooper Gallery has a research remit. Student Services are essential to supporting access to education.

Whilst other struggling UK Universities cite the downturn of international student numbers as a key issue in financial crises, the key cause at University of Dundee was different. The Gillies Report, commissioned by Scottish Funding Council (SFC), the University’s main funder, found ‘at the heart of the financial failure at the University of Dundee were failures in governance and leadership and failures in financial management’. The SFC went on to outline ‘… what needs to happen to ensure that the University not only survives but continues to make a distinctive and valuable contribution to the local community, national economy and international reach of Scotland’ (27.11.25, ‘University of Dundee Funding Conditions’, sfc.ac.uk). 

Roll on from this agreement and a year after a £40 million bailout from Scottish Government (June 2025), University of Dundee is in a further period of proposed collective redundancy.

Cooper Gallery, University of Dundee

University of Dundee is proposing, amongst numerous cuts, to close Cooper Gallery, despite the exhibitions programme having a track record which mirrors exactly the qualities the Scottish Funding Council has asked the University deliver on. Indeed, the Cooper Gallery also links to University of Dundee’s own strategic plan 2022-27, where there is much emphasis on the University’s role in public engagement and delivering cultural benefits: ‘Our strategy will develop new approaches for creating economic, civic and cultural benefits’. In 2020 the University was the first university in Scotland to receive gold watermark in recognition of its commitment to public engagement in all aspects of its work. 

With the plan to jettison cultural and public engagement assets, the question arises if the University of Dundee can deliver on public engagement and cultural benefits, and meet with key funders requirements? The University outlines in its strategy the special relationship it has with V&A Dundee, UNESCO City of Design and Dundee Science Centre. It should not overlook the particular place Cooper Gallery, as a public facing part of the University, has in the city’s cultural contribution alongside V&A Dundee, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Generator Projects, McManus and other artist-led initiatives such as Nomas Projects or Drawing Projects UK. These organisations make up the unique cultural offer in Dundee.

In the case of V&A Dundee, University of Dundee cites ‘As a founding partner of the project we retain strong links with V&A Dundee.’ (V&A and the University of Dundee’, 11.9.18 ) In the next crucial period, it could be vital the ways in which these neighboring institutions, including Dundee City Council, can show or continue to give their support to Cooper Gallery, and the wider institution facing job cuts, during the consultation period of 30-45 days that the University takes as part of its Redundancy process. It should be noted however, that advocacy has already occurred behind the scenes. DCA wrote to University of Dundee Executive back in February 2026, expressing strong support of Cooper Gallery, and their concern regarding the then, reduction of budget and staffing. Worryingly, DCA never received a reply to their letter. Silence seems at odds with University of Dundee’s Strategic Plan 2022-27 statement which outlines an understanding of its links with neighbors:

‘The city locates us in a network of dynamic relationships: its natural resources, its culture and imagination, social institutions and knowledge networks’.

The Strategy goes on to state ‘We actively learn from and work with communities and partner organisations to ensure we deliver our shared priorities in a sustainable, inclusive and socially responsible manner.’ Why does University of Dundee appear to be not listening?

Cooper Gallery’s track record can also be tracked in its consistent funding from Creative Scotland who value quality and ambition. Again, it is in national interests to advocate for the role of the visual arts in Scotland’s society, so it would be key for Creative Scotland to contribute to this conversation with University of Dundee and with Scottish Government on advocating for and retaining cultural assets. 

Conclusion

As University of Dundee makes its move towards losing yet more staff and student culture [2], the institution requires to be held to account. This needs to be more robust than last year’s Meeting of Parliament (24.6.25) when at the ‘University of Dundee Finances (Gillies Review)’ session, The (then) Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, Jenny Gilruth, [3] in her closing remarks said: ‘A line must now be drawn under the mistakes of a collective few’. It is now apparent, following the much delayed publishing of University of Dundee’s 2023-24 financial accounts, that those ‘mistakes’, did not, on the face of it, act detrimentally on those ‘collective few’, with, ‘Two former principals at a crisis-hit university received payments totalling more than £290,000 after leaving their posts, despite a financial and governance crisis plunging the institution into turmoil’. (The Independent, ‘Dundee University principals paid nearly £300,000 after stepping down’, Craig Meighan, 1.7.26). This current situation of proposed job cuts does not lack in opportunity, nor lack of knowledge, to be discussed at Scottish Government level. The University of Dundee Rector is Maggie Chapman, a Scottish Green Member of the Scottish Parliament for North East Scotland. The Rector sits as a key member on University Court. As she stated, in the Herald (‘New Dundee University Rector recently critical of operations’, Garrett Stell, 21.3.25):

We must shine a light on university governance and decision-making, ask challenging and sometimes uncomfortable questions and ensure we bring the voices of students and the staff who support their education, into every conversation we have.

Worryingly, a year later, Dundee University and College Union in their evaluation ‘Dundee UCU Finds University’s Strategy for Recovery Lacking’ (16.6.26) stated amongst its key findings that the ‘Strategy to Recovery’ submitted by the University of Dundee had not met most of the Scottish Funding Council’s Conditions of Grant’ including, ‘The University has not undertaken meaningful engagement with staff, students or campus union’.

Whilst Chapman has spoken to the general ‘plight ‘of University of Dundee staff and students at a Member’s Business Debate (19.6.26) at Scottish Parliament, she would be well placed to acknowledge why no ‘meaningful engagement’ with the University of Dundee community has taken place in the course of the institution’s ‘Strategy to Recovery’ being developed.

Footnotes

[1] FTE full time equivalent means more than 190 jobs could be lost, with part-time roles counting towards the total.

[2] The loss of the word ‘Cultural’ has already taken place, with one of the Directorates moving from being called ‘Library, Academic & Cultural Services’ to ‘Library & Academic Services’. This is at odds when externally, the Museums service that is part of that same Directorate has recently had ‘The Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design Collection, managed by University of Dundee Museums … formally recognised as a collection of national significance.’ (Press release, University of Dundee, ‘Artwork collection receives “recognised” status’, 19.5.26)

[3] Jenny Gilruth is now the Deputy First Minister of Scotland and the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government.

For more information on proposed losses view The Jute Journal https://thejutejournal.com

There is an Open Letter that can be signed via @savecoopergallery on Instagram

Unknown's avatar

Research note 12: Violet Banks, University of Edinburgh Heritage Collections

by
ECA/3/2/1/1, Student Record Book, 1908 – 1920, University of Edinburgh

This visit has allowed for further work on Violet Banks’ (1896-1985) timeline. The Edinburgh College of Art Student Record book (1908-1920)[1] records Banks studying there from 1913-1916 then 1917-1918. Her date of entry is listed as October 1913 at age 17. Banks was predominantly in the Drawing and Painting section. It is listed that she also studied aspects of Design from 1914-15 and Architecture in 1915-16. She received her diploma in Drawing and Painting in June 1918. Two of Banks’ peers who received a diploma in same year were Anne Redpath (1895-1965) and Dorothy Nesbitt (1895-1971).

Image: ECA/1/1/1/10, ‘The Edinburgh College of Art, Report by the Board of Management to the Governors for the session 1917 – 1918’, University of Edinburgh. Photo: Jenny Brownrigg


In the ‘Edinburgh College of Art Report by the Board of Management to the Board of Governors 1917-18’, Banks is recorded as one of two students who received a minor travelling bursary of £15. The minor travelling bursary appears to have allowed the recipient to undertake visits to art collections, with a stipulation to present drawings from those on return. In the 1917-18 report, the quality of Banks’ work is recorded as follows:


‘The Head of Section reports that although conditions in regard to closed Galleries and sketching restrictions were as is, in the previous year, a creditable amount of work was done, thoroughly justifying the award. He states that the work of Anne Redpath while less in quality than that of Violet Banks, was of a very high standard, probably the highest yet reached by any Minor Travelling Bursary.‘[2]


In the Report from the following year, it shows Banks’ fellow students Redpath and Nesbitt go onto get their post-graduate qualification[3]. However, under the heading ‘Appointments to Students of College During Session 1918-19’, Violet Banks has been listed as ‘Art Mistress, Brondesbury House, Kingsgate, Thanet, Kent’.[4] This is the first record of her having spent time out with Scotland. Barry J. White’s ‘Thanet’s Private Schools 19th and early 20th Century’ (2004) lists Brondesbury House as a small girls’ boarding school in Margate, at 2 Eastern Esplanade. It is not currently known how long she stayed, but it looks like her first art mistress position before she was a senior art mistress at St Orans, Edinburgh[5].


To return to the Student Record book, in Banks’ entry it states she ‘Went into the studio of McLagan & Cumming 1928.‘ This was a printers, lithographers and photography studio in Edinburgh.[6] It is interesting to consider whether this experience of potentially working in photography studios gave her the experience to establish her own photography studio in 1930.


The final items relating to Banks held at University of Edinburgh Heritage Collection are seven photographs, stamped on the back with ‘Copyright Violet Banks A.R.P.S. 11 Randolph Place Edinburgh‘. They are noted as being Diploma Photographs, ranging from 1930-1933, showing students from Edinburgh College of Art Design group and Drawing and Painting as well as Design sections. On the back of the 1933 photograph there is a note of costs: ‘Copies 2/- each / Copies matt and mounted 2/6′. This suggests copies were for sale, potentially to the graduating students and their families. These photographs show that 12 years after her own graduation, Banks had returned to Edinburgh College of Art as a jobbing photographer for a commercial opportunity.

Top: 2/1/3/14, ‘Possibly design group’, 1932, Violet Banks, University of Edinburgh. Bottom: 2/1/3/11, ‘Diploma 1930’, Violet Banks, University of Edinburgh Photos: Jenny Brownrigg


The photographs of the students are informal. Whist the students are in rows, in the 1930 photograph the women students are mostly still wearing their overalls. Banks captures the group’s camaraderie, with their arms around shoulders of peers. In 1932’s class photograph, one of the women is smoking. When contrasted with a formal class photograph by Drummond Sheils depicting the 1932 Architecture Diploma group, there is a marked difference in photographers’ approaches. Whilst Banks’ class photographs are outdoors and natural, the Sheils grouping sees the students formally sat in chairs. All are wearing gowns and are unsmiling.

Violet Banks Collection is at Historic Environment Scotland. Her work is also part of the IF Grant Collection at Edinburgh Central Library, The Museum of Childhood, Edinburgh and National Galleries of Scotland. Out of the 14 women photographers and filmmakers in ‘Glean: Early 20th Century women filmmakers and photographers in Scotland’[7] she is only one of three to have had an art school education[8]. Banks’ trace in the student records and reports at University of Edinburgh has given further crucial information on her biography.  

Footnotes

[1] ECA/3/2/1/1, Student Record Book, 1908 – 1920, University of Edinburgh.

[2] ECA/1/1/1/10, ‘The Edinburgh College of Art, Report by the Board of Management to the Governors for the session 1917 – 1918′, University of Edinburgh.

[3] ECA/1/1/1/11 P.26, the ‘Edinburgh College of Art Report by the Board of Management to the Board of Governors 1918-19’, University of Edinburgh.

[4] P.27, Ibid.

[5] https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/artists/violet-banks

[6] Glasgow Museums collections navigator.

[7] City Arts Centre, Edinburgh (2022/23), curator Jenny Brownrigg.

[8] Margaret Watkins (1884-1969) studied with Clarence H White at his schools in New York and Maine. Helen Biggar (1909-1953) studied textile design at The Glasgow School of Art.

With thanks to Heather Jack for providing the catalogue references and steer to visit University of Edinburgh Heritage Collection.

Detail, Diploma group 1932, Violet Banks, University of Edinburgh. Photo: Jenny Brownrigg
Unknown's avatar

Research Note 11: Violet Banks postcards, Isle of Barra

by
Photo: Jenny Brownrigg
Castlebay, Barra postcard, Violet Banks

Violet Banks (1896-1985) was born near Kinghorn, Fife and educated at Craigmont, Edinburgh, and at Edinburgh College of Art. In 1928 she was senior arts mistress at St. Oran’s, a private school at Drummond Place, Edinburgh.[1] In 1935, Violet Banks established her own commercial photography studio in Edinburgh, taking photographs of Scotland’s capital city. The Violet Banks Collection is held by Historic Environment Scotland and can be viewed digitally on Canmore. Banks’ collection also holds nine photographic albums of the Hebrides. These photographs were the result of tours she made during the late 1920s / early 1930s.

‘A Book of Barra’, Violet Banks photograph album, PA 243, Historic Environment Scotland
Traigh Mhòr, Isle of Barra
Traigh Mhòr postcard, Violet Banks

I first became aware of Banks’ postcards through a research visit to Eigg History Society in 2016. Three of Banks’ photographs of Eigg, from her photograph album ‘The Small Isles’, appear as facsimiles of postcards in Eigg History Society’s archive. The postcards are distinctive in layout, always bearing black capital lettering ‘Photo: Violet Banks’ at the bottom right of the white border. Since that first encounter, I have slowly been purchasing her original photograph postcards via eBay. All the images Banks selected for her postcards are from her photograph albums at Historic Environment Scotland.

From the postcards I’ve collected to date, Barra has been the main subject. All have their originals in her album ‘A Book of Barra’. Photographic locations include Castlebay, Kisimul Castle, Loch An Duin, Traigh Mhòr, Traigh Eais and Northbay. Messages on the back of postcards show that the latest was posted in 1966, around 30 years after Banks’ visit. Banks’ Traigh Mhòr postcard in particular has had several reprints. The beach name appears mostly in Gaelic on the postcard title, but also as ‘Cockle Strand, Barra’. This postcard’s popularity could be due to this particular beach being famous as the landing strip for Barra Airport, which opened in 1936.

I visited Barra in March 2024. I began to look for the locations where Banks had stood to take her photographs. This method allows for serendipity as well as encountering local knowledge. For example, a local driver, parked in the spot at Traigh Mhòr where I had stopped to take the photograph, recounted that there had been a recent discussion on The Isle of Barra and Vatersay Appreciation Society Facebook Group relating to one of Banks’ photographs of Traigh Mhòr. Several people commented on the location as possibly being the burial site of an old woman where the grave had been lost with the road being built to the airport.

Less than an hour’s walk away from Traigh Mhòr is Northbay and St Barr’s Church, the subject of another of Banks’ photographs and postcards. The church was completed in 1906[2]. Whilst the old pier, a prominent feature in Banks’ composition has been replaced by a modern, concrete version, there is still the presence of boats. The addition of the cross to the church occurred after Banks’ photograph.

Northbay, over to St Barr’s Church Photo: Jenny Brownrigg
Northbay, Barra postcard, Violet Banks

In the case of Banks’ postcard of St Barr’s Church in Northbay, Barra, this particular church, bay and road was also the subject of a number of American photographer, folklorist and author Margaret Fay Shaw’s photographs. Shaw (1903-2004) moved to Northbay and Bridge House[3] in 1935. This was the first home she had with her husband, the historian, folklorist and Gaelic scholar John Lorne Campbell (1906-1996). There is a small bridge at the road junction at the corner of the bay which may indicate the former location of Bridge House. There are a number of photographs in Margaret Fay Shaw photographic collection, held at The National Trust for Scotland Canna House, showing the view from that particular point over the bay towards St Barr’s Church, which would seem to corroborate the location of their home. However, the corrugated iron version of Bridge House as it appears in Shaw’s photographs, no longer exists.

Over to Kisimul Castle, with postcard Photo: Jenny Brownrigg
Kisimul Castle postcard, Violet Banks

Back in Castlebay, which Banks’ captures in three photograph postcards, I could see she used what was to hand as part of her making her compositions. For example, in her photograph of Kisimul castle, perhaps she had to stand on the rocky outcrop down from Our Lady, Star of the Sea Church, in order to get the top of the castle almost level with the outline of Vatersay behind.

I am keen to find out why there are so many photograph postcards of Barra. Where were the postcards being sold from in the 1930s to 1960s? Was it from the post office or any of the hotels in Castlebay? Was Banks being commissioned to make the postcards? Where did she stay on her visits?

Where I have duplicates of the postcards, I have gifted them to Violet Banks Collection at Historic Environment Scotland. Banks’ own photography of the Highlands and Islands only came to light when discovered by John Dixon of Georgian Antiques, in a drawer in a sideboard that had been part of a furniture purchase and then gifted to Royal Commission for the Ancient and Historic Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) now Historic Environment Scotland (HES), to become The Violet Banks Collection.[4] Given this initial precarity, it is important that the collection and knowledge surrounding it, continues to grow.

The postcards have been exhibited as part of larger exhibitions I have curated, including ‘Glean: early women filmmakers and photographers in Scotland’ (2023, City Art Centre, Edinburgh) and ‘Co-Roinn | Glean’, in partnership with Vanishing Scotland Archive (2023, Museum nan Eilean Lionacleit, Isle of Benbecula).

Violet Banks postcards collection, ‘Co-Roinn | Glean’, Museum nan Eilean (Lionacleit), Isle of Benbecula, 2023. Photo: Anne Corrance Monk

Footnotes

[1] Veronica Fraser. (2008-9). The Violet Banks Collection. In Grater, A. (ed). Vernacular Building 32. Scottish Vernacular Buildings Working Group 2008-9.

[2] From P.13, ‘St Barr’s Church Northbay Barra 1906-2006’, compiled by Mairi Ceit MacKinnon, Island Books Trust

[3] P.25, Ibid.

[4] Veronica Fraser. (2008-9). The Violet Banks Collection. In Grater, A. (ed). Vernacular Building 32. Scottish Vernacular Buildings Working Group 2008-9.

Unknown's avatar

‘Co-roinn | Glean’, Museum nan Eilean (Lionacleit), Isle of Benbecula

by

Co-roinn | Glean

Early 20th Century women filmmakers and photographers in Scotland

Museum nan Eilean

Sgoil Lionacleit, Lionacleit, Isle of Benbecula HS7 5PJ

5 October – 9 December 2023, entry by donation (Tues, Thurs 10am-1pm, 2-4pm; Wed 10am-1pm; Fri 10am-1pm, 2pm-5pm, Sat 10am-3.30pm; Sun & Mon closed)

Violet Banks (1886-1985), MEM Donaldson (1876-1958), Beatrice Garvie (1872-1959), Jenny Gilbertson (1902-1990), Johanna Kissling (1875-1961), Isabell Burton MacKenzie (1872-1958), Margaret Fay Shaw (1903-2004)

‘Co-roinn | Glean’ (Sharing Glean), is an exhibition which is a partnership between The Glasgow School of Art’s Exhibitions Director Jenny Brownrigg (curator) and Vanishing Scotland Archive.

The exhibition builds on ‘Glean: early 20th century women filmmakers and photographers in Scotland’, which took place at City Art Centre, Edinburgh earlier this year. ‘Co-roinn | Glean’ shares the work of seven women, who recorded life in Highlands and Islands Scotland, between 1905 and 1940.

The women presented a different narrative of Scotland [1], one where disappearing ways of traditional life are shown alongside modern day life. Ranging from life in Benbecula, South Uist, St Kilda, Orkney and Shetland, themes include landscape and nature, recording communities, school life and working the land.

From rural Scotland, we see a portrait of Shetland from Jenny Gilbertson; Margaret Fay Shaw’s portraits of sisters Màiri and Peigi MacRae and their life in the small village of North Glendale, South Uist; to the wanderings of M.E.M. Donaldson in her walks with her camera across the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Rural work, and examples of some cottages in Benbecula by Violet Banks will be part of ‘Co-roinn | Glean‘. Isabell Burton MacKenzie was The Highlands Home Industry travelling organiser from 1911-14. Using a Kodak Vest Pocket camera as an aide memoire, she visited the homes of islanders involved in craft, to encourage them to sell their work directly through exhibitions on the mainland through The Highlands Home Industry initiatives. Dr Beatrice Garvie was the medical doctor for North Roaldsay, Orkney, for 15 years, recorded the work and significant community events in the island. Johanna Kissling visited St Kilda in 1905. 

Jenny Brownrigg is Exhibitions Director at The Glasgow School of Art. She is the curator of ‘Glean: early 20th century women filmmakers and photographers in Scotland’, which was the first time their work had been seen together, uncovering a previously untold story within the history of Scottish photography and filmmaking from this period.

Vanishing Scotland is a small, rural, ethnological archive, in Moniaive, Dumfriesshire, which is the life’s work of its Director Alyne E Jones.  It is a network organisation which promotes the understanding of Scottish Cultural Traditions.  For over 40 years Alyne has been collecting stories, artefacts, songs and written ephemera recording Scotland’s traditions and a way of life that is fast in decline. 

There is a programme of events accompanying ‘Co-roinn | Glean’ at Museum nan Eilean (Lionacleit).

Saturday 7th October 2-4pm: Drop in sessions

Alyne E Jones, Director of Vanishing Scotland will be available to share stories about the Highland Home Industries and Isabell Burton MacKenzie’s 1912 diary

Saturday 9thDecember 2-4pm:  Book signing with Alyne E Jones of Vanishing Scotland Archive

Supported by: Storas Uibhist, The Glasgow School of Art, Vanishing Scotland Archive, Museum nan Eilean & Comhairle nan Eilean Siar

With thanks to:

City Art Centre, Dumfries Museum, The National Trust for Scotland, Historic Environment Scotland, Comann Eachdraidh Uibhist a Tuath, Shetland Museum & Archive, Inverness Museum & Art Gallery, National Library of Scotland

Footnote

[1] Scotland was more commonly portrayed by male peers as ‘Romantic’ and ‘remote’ by only emphasizing traditional ways of life.

Unknown's avatar

‘Glean: Focus on Ruby Grierson and Jenny Gilbertson’ film screening, Skye, 2.9.23, 7.30pm

by

Dunvegan Hall, Saturday 2nd September, 7.30pm, free admission and all welcome.

This film screening, hosted by Duirinish Media and Culture Club, selects two documentary films from the recent City Art Centre, Edinburgh exhibition ‘Glean: early 20th century women photographers and filmmakers in Scotland’. The films are ‘Housing Problems’ (Arthur Elton, EH Anstey, directors, 1935, 15 mins, black and white, sound); and ‘A Crofter’s Life in Shetland’, Jenny Gilbertson (1931, 46 mins, black and white, silent). The films will be introduced by Glean’s curator Jenny Brownrigg. 

Ruby Grierson (b. Cambusbarron, Stirling, 1904-1940) was an uncredited assistant for the documentary Housing Problems (1935) directed by Arthur Elton (1906-1973) and Edgar Anstey (1907-1987). The film shows what was done to improve living conditions in London by local authorities and planners. Grierson has posthumously been credited with getting those living in poor conditions to talk straight to camera.  This was an innovation in documentary film making, which had previously relied on a narrator. Ruby Grierson was the older sister of filmmaker Marion Grierson (1907-1988) and younger sister of founder of the 1930s British Documentary Movement John Grierson (1898-1972).

Jenny Gilbertson (b. Glasgow, 1902-1990) had her career as a filmmaker in two distinct parts; the first in the 1930s’ filming Shetland life and the second, in her 70s’, recording the lives of remote Inuit communities in the Canadian Arctic.  ‘A Crofter’s Life in Shetland’ follows the full year of life in Shetland. Following the farming seasons, Gilbertson significantly places this way of life alongside other events and life there, including a wedding in Fetlar and the modern main street of Lerwick, Shetland’s capital. This film also captures the bird life on Shetland’s cliffs.

Jenny Brownrigg is Exhibitions Director at The Glasgow School of Art.

Credit: Jenny Gilbertson, (with Cuthbert Cayley), 1938/1939. Courtesy of Shetland Museum & Archives

Films: Courtesy of BFI Collections and Moving Image Archive, National Library of Scotland

Unknown's avatar

Glean: Focus on filmmaking, Fri 27 Jan 2023, 7pm

by

Book free tickets here

Credit: Jenny Gilbertson (with Cuthbert Cayley) 1938/39, courtesy of Shetland Museum & Archive

This online event focuses on early 20th Century women filmmakers in Scotland. Chaired by Professor Melanie Bell, (Film History, School of Media and Communication, University of Leeds), whose area of expertise is in Gender and Film as well as British Cinema History, the event will discuss the film production of that period, the ethics of filming others, and caring for their work. It will also reflect on how the women filmmakers saw themselves and their motivations for making film. This discussion is with Ros Cranston (Curator of Non-Fiction Film and Television at the BFI National Archive, BFI National Archive), Shona Main (PhD researcher, University of Stirling and The Glasgow School of Art); Janet McBain (founding Curator, Scottish Screen Archive); Professor Sarah Neely (Theatre, Film & Television Studies, University of Glasgow, Dr Isabel Seguí (Film and Visual Culture Department, University of Aberdeen) and Jenny Brownrigg (The Glasgow School of Art, curator of Glean). 

Biographies

Melanie Bell is Professor of Film History at the University of Leeds. She examines production histories through a gendered lens and has published widely on many aspects of women’s film history including documentary directors, costume designers, and foley artists. She uses oral histories, labour records, photographs and ephemera in her scholarship, and is especially interested in life narratives and occupational identities.   

Jenny Brownrigg is Exhibitions Director at The Glasgow School of Art. Her research interests include modern and contemporary Scottish women artists. She is curator of the exhibition ‘Glean: early 2oth century women filmmakers and photographers in Scotland’, at City Art Centre, Edinburgh, Scotland (2022 / 2023).

Ros Cranston is a Curator of Non-Fiction Film and Television at the BFI National Archive. She has a special interest in women documentary filmmakers, and leads The Camera is Ours: Britain’s women documentary makers project. She also led the BFI project This Working Life, which celebrates Britain’s coalmining, shipbuilding and steelmaking heritage on film.

Shona Main has just submitted a SGSAH-supported practice-led PhD thesis at Stirling University. A filmmaker herself, she is interested in the quietly radical ethical practice of the early documentary filmmaker Jenny Gilbertson (1902-1990) who filmed Shetland crofters in the 1930s and Inuit of Coral Harbour and Grise Fiord in Arctic Canada in the 1970s – when she was in her seventies. Operating alone and outside the film industry, Gilbertson’s DIY approach to filmmaking allowed her to take the time to attend, listen and build and sustain friendships with the people she lived and filmed with. 

 A graduate in Scottish history, and former Survey Officer for the National Register of Archives Scotland, Janet McBain joined the Scottish Film Council in 1976 at the inception of what was to become the Scottish Screen Archive. Since then she has overseen the development of the archive into Scotland’s national collection of some 35,000 reels of film and video reflecting Scottish life and cinematic art in the film century, and has been researching and promoting the history of film production and cinema exhibition in Scotland. She is the author of ‘Pictures Past – Recollections of Scottish Cinema Going’ (pub Moorfoot 1985) and contributor of essays, articles and conference papers on many aspects of film in Scotland.  In 2006 she was awarded the Outstanding Achievement in Film by BAFTA Scotland for her work in preserving and presenting Scotland’s film heritage and in 2016 was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters (DLitt) from the University of Glasgow.

Sarah Neely is Professor in Film and Visual Culture at the University of Glasgow. Her current research focuses on the areas of film history, memory and artists’ moving image.  Recent publications include Between Categories: The Films of Margaret Tait – Portraits, Poetry, Sound and Place (Peter Lang, 2016) and, as editor, Personae (LUX, 2021), a non-fiction work by Margaret Tait.  She is currently writing a book on memory, archives and creativity. 

Isabel Seguí is a Lecturer in Film and Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Aberdeen. Her work has appeared in academic journals such as Latin American Perspectives, Feminist Media Histories, Framework, Jump Cut, and edited collections like Feminist Worldmaking and the Moving Image (Balsom & Peleg eds, the MIT Press, 2022) or Incomplete: the Feminist Possibilities of the Unfinished Film (Beeston & Solomon eds., UC California Press, 2023). She is a member of the steering committee of RAMA (Latin American Women’s Audiovisual Research Network).

Unknown's avatar

Research note 11: ‘Glean’, exhibition, City Art Centre, Edinburgh

by

Glean: Early Twentieth Century Women Filmmakers and Photographers in Scotland

12 Nov 2022 – 12 March 2023

First Floor, City Art Centre, Edinburgh

This exhibition presents the work of fourteen pioneering women photographers and filmmakers working in Scotland during the early 20th century. The women are Violet Banks (1886-1985), Helen Biggar (1909-1953), Christina Broom (1862-1939), M.E.M. Donaldson (1876-1958), Dr Beatrice Garvie (1872-1959), Jenny Gilbertson (1902-1990), Isobel F Grant (1887–1983), Ruby Grierson (1904-1940), Marion Grierson (1907-1998), Isobel Wylie Hutchison (1889-1982), Johanna Kissling (1875-1961), Isabell Burton MacKenzie (1872-1958), Margaret Fay Shaw (1903-2004) and Margaret Watkins (1884-1969).

These women offer different accounts of Scotland, covering both rural and city places and communities. The exhibition shows the breadth of their photography and filmmaking, offering a critical analysis of their work. It considers their different motivations and how these informed the work they made, and the different narratives we see emerging from their work in Scotland. It is the first time their work has been seen together.

An accompanying programme of both online and in person events brings together key researchers, artists and archivists who have been looking after and creatively working with the legacies of the women in this exhibition.

With thanks to the following lenders:  British Film Institute, Dumfries Museum, Edinburgh Museums and Galleries, Glasgow Women’s Library, Historic Environment Scotland, Inverness Museum and Art Gallery High Life Highland, Hidden Gallery Glasgow, Highland Folk Museum High Life Highland, The Glasgow School of Art Archives and Collections, Moving Image Archive, Museum of London, National Library of Scotland, National Trust for Scotland Canna House, Orkney Library & Archive, Shetland Museum & Archives, Vanishing Scotland Archive

Curated by Jenny Brownrigg (Exhibitions Director, The Glasgow School of Art) in partnership with City Art Centre.

Poster image: Jenny Gilbertson (with Cuthbert Cayley) 1938 or 1939, courtesy of Shetland Museum and Archive.

Unknown's avatar

Research Note 10: Orkney Library & Archive

by
Orkney Library & Archive, Kirkwall Photo: Jenny Brownrigg (2022)

The photography of Dr Beatrice Garvie (1872-1956) has come to my attention solely through the ongoing meticulous work of artist and researcher Fiona Sanderson. Sanderson had come across Garvie’s photographs through her own connection to North Ronaldsay, Orkney. As part of her time on the island as the community doctor in the 1930s and 40s, Garvie had photographed Sanderson’s grandmother ‘Jenny South Ness’. Sanderson has, over several years, presented her ongoing research as part of a number of events including ‘Holm Sound’ (Episode 7: BLØM, 2022); and XPoNorth’s podcast series ‘Unforgotten Highland Women’ (2022). As an artist involved in a ‘Culture Collective’ project in North Ronaldsay, Sanderson has also introduced Dr Garvie and her work to North Ronaldsay schoolchildren. As part of her  research, Sanderson has contacted Garvie’s family, and, through her own connections with North Ronaldsay, the families of those in the photographs. This has allowed Sanderson to work collaboratively to name and caption, when not noted in Garvie’s own captions. Sanderson also recognises the ethical issue of use of the photographs in further public platforms such as exhibitions and events, asking permission as some may not wish to have photographs of family members shown. This research approach is also echoed in Shona Main’s work with Jenny Gilbertson’s early films in Shetland, asking communities to name those beyond the central islanders involved.

Like Margaret Fay Shaw (1903-2004), who lived with the MacRae sisters in North Glendale, South Uist for five years in the early 1930s’, Dr Garvie also lived in the community she was photographing for 15 years from the 1930s to ‘40s. As can be noted through the work of Shetland filmmaker Jenny Gilbertson who also, latterly as a teacher, lived and worked in the community she had documented, this sustained period of immersion allowed for a full understanding and recording of the changing seasons and their impact on the island.  For Gilbertson,  ‘A Crofter’s Life in Shetland’ (1931) was filmed over the period of a year, showing seasonal farming and fishing cycles. Seasons can also be perceived in Garvie’s work through the types of farm labour she photographed. The weather is also apparent, for example, in one sequence  of unloading the boat ‘The Earl Sigurd’, with snow lying on the pier in the foreground. As Sanderson points out, Garvie as a doctor is likely to be the only woman photographer to have taken photographs of the babies and children she brought into the world, there is a sense of time passing in her photographs of the children beginning to grow up, from babies into toddlers. Dr Kenneth Robertson, a physician in South Uist from 1956-1981, is a later example of a doctor in Scotland photographing the community they served.

Garvie captured communal work in North Ronaldsay, from re-roofing the baker’s shop, to repairing the unique wall that encircles the high shore line around the island, keeping the seaweed-eating sheep on the foreshore. Her photographs really have a unique sense of ‘place’, with the lighthouse, as a main landmark, often discernible in photographs where she has focussed on farm work, such as of a woman scything. There are several sequences of activities relating to ‘tangle work’, such as men and women piling up kelp in heaps; and then placing these in ‘kilns’ on the shore to set light to. A handwritten description on the back of one of the photographs reads:

‘Tangle stacks. Tangle is collected from the beach during winter… left on this ridge of stones above the beach – about July is forked into circular shallow pits… and burned, becoming lumps of dark grey material. This is shipped to Grangemouth Chemical Works.’

As I have noted before, some of the male photographers of this period were keen to perpetuate the idea of island Scotland as a romantic and remote location, however Garvie’s description firmly links the labour of the islanders to Scottish industry, on this occasion, in Grangemouth. As we see later, the boat and the plane, also recorded in Garvie’s photography, link up North Ronaldsay to Orkney mainland and mainland Scotland. Jenny Gilbertson’s film ‘A Crofter’s Life in Shetland’ also shows modernity and tradition living side by side in this period.

One of the key aspects of Garvie’s style is her ability to catch ‘movement’. Her photography often captures a ‘live’ rather than staged, activity. She has made no effort to edit or to ask for the action to be repeated or frozen, for the benefit of the camera. The hands of those working the land are often a blur. In one  photograph, she captures a man throwing a rope to the incoming boat. His body is in a diagonal, with the black of the boat’s hull providing a backdrop for the water droplets cascading from the rope to be seen against. As well as the movement of the subject, when seeing an activity in photographic sequence, such as the tangle work, Garvie’s own movement as a photographer becomes apparent. She ranges round the point of focus, photographing up close, then moving behind to photograph the same activity at a distance. Sanderson is currently working with Garvie’s relatives to identify the type of camera she used. From the low angle of the camera looking up, as was synonymous with the period, it looks likely that that camera was held at waist height.

A second aspect to note in Garvie’s style as a photographer is that her compositions often revolve around strong shapes. This may be the distinct curve of a furrow connecting up to horses and plough in the foreground, or placing the large stone circle of a shallow pit on the shore as the immediate focus in the photograph, with the islanders burning kelp in another pit, in the far distance. This sense of shape also comes into her pictures of children. In one, a triangular composition is dominant; a large triangular wooden frame is echoed by the triangle of a mother’s body (who is sitting perched within it), which in turn frames the baby, dressed in white, that she holds in her lap. These shapes and her liking for the abstract is also followed through with unusual cropping in her framing of the subject. A young boy on top of a gate post is framed from just below his shoulders down. This, and Garvie’s innate understanding of perspective, sets the triangle created by his legs echoed by the chimneyed end of a cottage in the distance.  In looking at Garvie’s photography as a whole, in the 500-strong collection of photographs, these are not unintended compositions but a preference for strong and unusual compositions.

This is carried through to Dr Garvie’s aerial work. Orkney Archive holds the Gunnie Moberg (1941-2007) collection where, in Moberg’s work such as ‘Stone Built’ (1979, Stromness Books & Prints), Moberg took photographs from an airplane of Orkney’s archaeological sites and stone structures, including the ‘seaward wall’ of North Ronaldsay. It is pleasing to think that in the same archive, Dr Garvie is a forerunner to Moberg. Garvie photographed aspects of an aerodrome being built on North Ronaldsay and the excitement of island events such as the first Royal Mail flight in 1939 linking up the UK to North Ronaldsay. Again drawn to abstract shapes, Garvie also photographed North Ronaldsay, Kirkwall and Caithness by air, the shape of the white wing  sometimes visually echoing that of an island peninsula. In compositions that focus soley on dark and alternating light strips of fields with the dots of the haystacks, her aerial work is at its most sublime.

Just as the women photographers Violet Banks and Margaret Fay Shaw kept their work in photograph albums, the holdings at Orkney Library & Archive show that Dr Garvie kept the majority of her work in albums too. However, whereas Banks’ albums were only found through the sale of the dresser that they were kept in, Sanderson discovered that the accession of the albums had begun following the death of Dr Garvie, with North Ronaldsay islanders asking Garvie’s relatives for the return of the photograph albums. Their importance as an archive of a generation of islanders, to their families, is a key part of these works.

The  forthcoming exhibition ‘Glean: Early 20th Century Women Filmmakers and Photographers in Scotland’, at the City Art Centre, Edinburgh, (12 Nov 2022-12 March 2023) will feature the work of fourteen women. A selection from Dr Garvie’s work will add important co-ordinates, those of North Ronaldsay and Orkney, to the breadth of locations these fourteen women worked in. Furthermore, Dr Garvie’s work brings with it a distinct style and approach to recording a Scottish community over a prolonged period of time in the 1930s and 40’s. Sanderson will be developing an event as part of this exhibition programme.

With thanks to Fiona Sanderson, and to Lucy Gibbon and Colin Rendall at Orkney Library & Archive.

Unknown's avatar

Research Note 9: Edinburgh Central Library and Highland Folk Museum

by

The latest research visits (April & May 2022) have been on the trail of a particular series of photographs by Dr Isabel Frances Grant (1887-1983) that are part of the IF Grant Photographic Collection. I moved from one digital archive, am baile to two physical archives- Edinburgh Central Library which holds the photographic collection itself and Highland Folk Museum, Newtonmore, which is the embodiment and repository for IF Grant’s wider work as the founder of Am Fasgadh.

IF Grant described Am Fasgadh as ‘a pioneering attempt to create a Highland variant of the well-known folk museums of Scandinavia’. [1] She originally organised an exhibition in Inverness in 1930, in the hope that someone upon seeing the history and the material culture of different areas of the Highlands and islands, would create such a museum. Whilst the exhibition, lasting 7 weeks and receiving ‘close on 20,000 visitors’ [2] proved popular, no one came forward. IF Grant then went on to tour over Scotland to collect and buy artefacts, which she subsequently housed in three iterations of Am Fasgadh (‘The Shelter’). Grant saw Am Fasgadh as ‘providing a shelter for homely Highland things’ [3] in Iona (established 1935), Laggan and Kingussie. Following gifting her collection and museum to the four Scottish Universities [4] in 1954, Am Fasgadh was taken over by Highland Region in 1975.

The IF Grant Collection online at am baile and held at Edinburgh Central Library brings together IF Grant’s own photographs with the work of other photographers that she purchased, including Margaret Fay Shaw and Violet Banks. All the photographs depict different aspects of Highland life. Shaw’s photographs augment a gap in the collection on South Uist; whilst Banks’ works are of the ‘Last remaining inhabited thatched cottage’ in Eigg and a white thatched cottage in Sconser, Skye.

Grant’s own photographs, (attributed to her in the IF Grant Collection), depict a keen interest in different building styles and variations of thatched cottages across Scotland. Whilst there are examples from the larger islands of Lewis, Mull, Skye, and Arran, Grant also photographed buildings in Colonsay, Ulva and Lismore. She took examples across the north of Scotland in Thurso and Durness, around to north west, in Mallaig and Morar. Intriguingly, there is also a sub section of Grant’s photographs which are of ruinous cottages, which on one emotive level illustrate that this way of life was fast disappearing. Grant notes the cause in the early 1930s as ‘the Scottish Board of Agriculture was carrying a housing drive. Every steamer I travelled in appeared to be loaded with piles of window frames, sanitary equipment, etc… one began to wonder if any cottage of the traditional style would be left’. [5]

My research day at Highland Folk Museum, concentrating on IF Grant’s own photography, has proved to be three-fold – seeing the volume of photography that Grant commissioned from other photographers, mostly relating to Am Fasgadh; the subsequent usage of that photography to disseminate the existence of the museum further afield; and, some context relating to her own photography series of the cottages. Firstly, Grant worked with different photographers as well as postcard publishers Valentines and JB White, to document artefacts, interiors and exteriors of the three iterations of Am Fasgadh. She then utilised this documentation for spreading the word of the museum, in particular as saleable composite image postcards for museum visitors. A number of the photographs also illustrate articles on the museum in Scots Magazine and The Listener. Names that crop up repeatedly in her photograph album captions are Glasgow photographer John Mackay, who took photographs of the objects such as stools, chairs and farming implements, on mostly stark white backgrounds; and Donald B MacCulloch, whose address stamped on the back of one loose photograph in an album places him in Aviemore. In amongst another archival box, several visitors mailed IF Grant photographs of their day at the museum, which illustrates cameras were very much everyday objects used by the general population.

Cover of photograph album, with IF Grant’s handwritten index Photo: Jenny Brownrigg (2022)

In the photograph albums held in Am Fasgadh, Grant’s own captions provide a good level of detail relating to the authorship of photographs of the museum interiors and exteriors. An example is ‘Large photograph by D.B. MacCulloch’. However, on the pages there are also smaller, unattributed photographs of the museum. One option would be to surmise she did not note when a photograph is one of hers, but it is difficult to be sure of her authorship when she worked with numerous photographers. In Box 6, there are two foolscap sheets of paper, which are the only visual reference to the series of thatched cottages held at Edinburgh Central Library. There are 6 photographs affixed across the two sheets, with captions relating to object and place, in IF Grant’s handwriting. ‘1. A ruined cottage in Inverness-shire’ shows the pared back gable, stripped of thatch. It sits on the page next to ‘2. A very primitive cottage in Barra with hearth in the middle of the room’. The photograph captions do not state the author, however the image of the Barra interior, is definitely one of Margaret Fay Shaw’s. The Edinburgh Central Library holds larger reprints of this image, correctly attributed to Shaw. On the second foolscap page, the photograph with caption ‘5. Lewis houses’, reverts back to likely being taken by Grant. In this example, is the blurring of authorship down to IF Grant’s larger role of collector? Did she see her own photography as part of a larger collection, alongside other photographers’ work?

In Box 5, commissioned Aviemore photographer Donald B MacCulloch appears again, this time writing an article ‘Am Fasgadh: The Iona Museum’, for Scots Magazine and Scottish Country Life. MacCulloch states, ’She [IF Grant] has also formed a remarkable collection of old thatch cottages, and of various domestic activities carried on throughout the North Country and islands’ (P.48). This is the first external appraisal of the series as part of a collection.

Catalogue cover, ‘Highland Exhibition Inverness’ (1930) Photo: Jenny Brownrigg (2022)

Furthermore, the inclusion of these photographs in the exhibition catalogue for the ‘Highland Exhibition Inverness’ 1930, pre-dates this series to Grant’s subsequent establishing of Am Fasgadh’s first iteration in 1935. The introduction essay on P30 notes:

There will be a collection of portfolios [in the exhibition] for those who care to spend more time … there will be a large collection of photographs of old Highland cottages and of familiar work scenes.

The last entry in the catalogue reads: ‘Portfolio of Photography of life in the Highlands, lent by Miss IF Grant, Balnespick.’ Grant saw this particular portfolio’s purpose as one which augmented the exhibition, for those interested in the subject.

It is not unusual to traverse ground between archives to understand better the motivations and aims that each of the women photographers and filmmakers from early 20th Century in Scotland had for their work. The path between Edinburgh Central Library and Highland Folk Museum is no different. In a photocopied bibliography of Dr IF Grant’s written work, held at Am Fasgadh, it is noted ‘”Random recollections of the distribution of Local Types of Cottages”, typescript, 17pp, deposited with Edinburgh City Libraries, a companion piece to IF Grant Collection of photographs (1965)’. I shall look forward to returning to Edinburgh Central Library to learn more about this portfolio of images, and, hopefully, to shed more light on the photography she authored.

With thanks to Helen Pickles, Highland Folk Museum and Iain Duffus, Edinburgh Central Library

Am Fasgadh entrance Photo: Jenny Brownrigg (2022)

Footnotes

[1] P.11, ‘The Making of Am Fasgadh: An account of the Origins of the Highland Folk Museum by its Founder’, Isabel Frances Grant, (2007, National Museums Scotland).

[2] From Report of the Joint Honorary Secretaries to The Executive Committee of the Highland Exhibition 1930, typescript, (Accessions no: 2:1985), Am Fasgadh

[3] P.191, ‘The Making of Am Fasgadh: An account of the Origins of the Highland Folk Museum by its Founder’, Isabel Frances Grant, (2007, National Museums Scotland).

[4] P.10, Hugh Cheape, introduction, ‘The Making of Am Fasgadh: An account of the Origins of the Highland Folk Museum by its Founder’, Isabel Frances Grant, (2007, National Museums Scotland).

[5] P.30, Ibid.

Unknown's avatar

Decommissioned Life Cycles: Cleaning

by

Limpet 500, Wave Power Station, (2000-2012) Isle of Islay

The components required for renewable energy have their own finite, often short, life cycles. Limpet 500 was Europe’s first experimental wave chamber and the world’s first commercial wave power device, connecting to the UK national grid. It was designed by Wavegen and Queens University Belfast. Nine years after its decommissioning, the remaining concrete structure could be viewed as contemporary archaeology. On the Autumn equinox 2021, at age 50, I cleaned in front of Limpet 500, using heather from the Mull of Oa.

Produced as a double sided A5 card, edition of 100 (2021)

Photograph: Alastair S. Macdonald